Demonstrations, dissent and unrest in China

[waltky]

Dissent & democracy in Taiwan could be a model for China...

Repressing dissent kills democracy
Wed, Jul 31, 2013 - The right to dissent is an important fundamental value that is universally cherished by modern democratic states. In democratic culture and under constitutional rule, the need to respect dissenting views is seen as self-evident. Truly democratic societies do not just tolerate dissent, they encourage it.

Democratic governments should use institutional means to ensure that dissidents can openly express opinions that differ from the mainstream without fear of reprisal. Authorities should also safeguard the right of dissidents to criticize the government, even provocatively. Taiwan’s Constitution protects dissidents’ freedom of speech for good reason, namely to promote genuine competition in the marketplace of ideas so all kinds of opinions can compete openly. Offered a wide range of information and opinions available, people will then be able to seek out the truth, as well as deepen their knowledge and gain enlightenment from exposure to new ideas.

Freely competing ideas nurture autonomous citizenship and facilitate individuals’ quest for self-actualization, so when those who support society’s majority opinions are willing to protect so-called “minority” dissidents it provides them with room to grow through the absorption of knowledge and ideas, even if they are only doing so in anticipation of the day when they find themselves in the minority. The reason the Constitution guarantees dissidents’ freedom of expression is to ensure that ordinary people, having entrusted their rulers with the power to govern through regular elections, remain the masters of the nation. Therefore, no matter who is ruling the country at any particular time, constitutions protect people’s right to have and express views that oppose those of their rulers’.

Constitutions safeguard the public’s right to engage in unfettered criticism of the government, to keep an eye on the government in case it abuses its powers and even encourage the exposure of abuses by whistleblowers who are familiar with the inner workings of government. Only when the right to dissent is guaranteed can citizens genuinely participate in a democracy. This participation is the source of a society’s vitality, serves as a corrective balance for rulers’ biases and is the essential motivating force driving a society to engage in collective reflection and institutional reform. Democracies need to provide multiple channels through which the public can express any dissenting views they have and to supervise the government to ensure that policymaking is legitimate and transparent.

Governments have a duty to provide concrete, detailed information about their governance and policymaking, engage in genuine dialogue with their citizens and allow themselves to be tested. However, instead of fulfilling these duties, the Taiwanese government paternalistically trumpets the supposed benefits of controversial policies such as the cross-strait service trade agreement, while accusing anyone who disagrees with its opinion of drawing a distorted picture of the policies. If there is no frank, open dialogue between the state and the public, how can anyone judge which side is doing the distorting? If ordinary people have no access to genuine dialogue and no way of supervising the government, it should hardly come as a surprise when guerrilla-like protests pop up everywhere.

More Repressing dissent kills democracy - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Granny hopin' dey don't nationalize dat rickshaw company she got stock in...

China’s reforms at a critical junction
Tue, Dec 31, 2013 - As China celebrated the 120th anniversary of former leader Mao Zedong’s birth, there has been much discussion about his legacy in the early 21st century.

In light of an economic slowdown, China’s communist leaders are likely to confront many structural obstacles next year. These problems are exacerbated by several explosive factors such as a lack of prosperity, high inflation and unemployment rates, rampant corruption and incompetent government that is devoid of democratic legitimacy. Since its founding on Oct. 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China was neither a reproduction of the Soviet Union model nor an incarnation of the ancient Confucian empire. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) distinguished itself from previous regimes by extending its political power to control society, the economy and national culture. The Maoist regime tightened control at all levels, dominating political, social, economic and cultural domains.

However, everything changed following a series of important political moments. The most notorious movement was the Cultural Revolution (lasting from 1966 to 1976) that was launched to activate popular radicalism in support of Mao, but almost brought down the regime.
The state only survived this movement by effectively suppressing the popular outpourings that Mao had encouraged. Since then, communism as a unifying ideology collapsed and pragmatism prevailed under former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and his successors.

From the 1980s, economic growth has become the people’s common hope and desire, and thus the only collective value supporting the CCP’s legitimacy. Combining the transformative power of the market economy and stability of authoritarian rule, CCP leaders have adapted certain tenets of capitalism such as opening to foreign investment, deregulating the labor market and building infrastructure, while maintaining firm control over the government, military, public security and information. However, accompanying China’s economic miracle are authoritarianism and domestic conflict.

Because of explosive grievances caused by the state’s aggressive development strategies and reluctance to liberalize its authoritarian system, a rising China that denies its citizens what they desire — such as job security, healthcare, gender equality and freedom — drives discontented sections of society to mobilize for collective action in order to guarantee security, solace and justice. Popular protest has become a prominent mode of political participation, and the dangers of ineffective governance will be reflected internally. As many as 180,000 strikes, demonstrations and protests were reported in 2010. This is an average of 493 incidents per day.

This official figure indicates a dramatic increase from the 90,000 incidents documented in 2006 and fewer than 9,000 in the mid-1990s. China is now confronting the negative aspects of economic liberalization. Unprecedented growth gave China a temporary reprieve, but the national economy has slowed down and the state has yet to offer a sustainable social developmental strategy. As China is trapped in a perceptual cycle of discontent, time seems to be running out for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resolve these internal problems and place the country on the right track.

China?s reforms at a critical junction - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

The more things change - the more they remain the same...

25 Years After Tiananmen Massacre, China Still Won't Tolerate Dissent
May 22, 2014 -- “The more things change in China, the more they stay the same," Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said in his opening statement at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing held on Capitol Hill Tuesday to mark the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

“In 1989, the Chinese government used guns and tanks to suppress the people’s demands for freedom and transparency. In 2014, they use arrests, discrimination, torture, and censorship to discourage those who seek basic freedoms and human rights,” Smith noted. The human rights situation in China seems to be worse since the 1989 protests, agreed Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in his opening remarks at Tuesday’s hearing. “Eight hundred million people in China still don’t enjoy the basic right to vote. Chinese citizens, including those who in recent weeks have bravely tried to commemorate those events of a quarter century ago, are imprisoned simply for peacefully exercising their right to free speech, to assembly, to religion,” Brown said.

In the lead-up to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, the Chinese government continues to crack down on any signs of dissent. On May 16, human rights lawyer Tang Jingling was arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” according to his wife, Wang Yanfang. A number of personal items were also reportedly taken from his home by Chinese authorities. Writers Liu Di and Hu Shigen, human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, retired scholar Xu Youyou, and professor Hao Jian were all criminally detained after they participated in a privately held seminar on May 3rd commemorating the events of 1989.

And Xu Guang, a student leader during the Tiananmen protests and a pro-democracy activist, was arrested April 2nd on charges of “subversion.” “Tiananmen did not end in 1989,” Dr. Rowena He, writer and Harvard lecturer, reminded those attending the “Tiananmen at 25” hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. “It is not just about then, it is about now.” The current crackdown is part of ongoing governmental action against lawyers, activists, and scholars as the anniversary of the protest draws near, according to the congressional commission. The Tiananmen Square protests began peacefully in Beijing on April 18, 1989 after the death of former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who had become a pro-democracy symbol.

However, on the night of June 3-4, an undetermined number of unarmed students and civilian protesters were fired upon by the Chinese Army. Although an official death toll has never been released, estimates of the fatalities range from several hundred to several thousand. Eyewitness Liane Lee shared her experience of the massacre during Tuesday’s hearing. “There’s a big contrast there,” she said. “The people - they are so peaceful, they are so noble, and they do believe in the power of peace. And the government . . . used heavy weapons to kill the people.” Lee, a student from Hong Kong at the time, said she was rescued from the square by an ambulance driver. “You must leave the square safely, you must go back to Hong Kong. We need you to tell the world what happened here, what our government did to us tonight,” the driver reportedly told Lee. Other witnesses at the hearing included former U.S. Ambassadors to China . Stapleton Roy and Winston Lord.

25 Years After Tiananmen Massacre, China Still Won't Tolerate Dissent | CNS News

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Chinese President in Veiled Warning to the US: Don’t Try to ‘Monopolize Regional Affairs’
May 22, 2014 – Buoyed by the signing of a massive deal to buy Russian natural gas for the next 30 years, Chinese President Xi Jinping called Wednesday for a new security framework for Asia, in a speech which Chinese state media said contained veiled warnings to the United States.

“Someone who tries to blow out another’s oil lamp will set his beard on fire,” Xi told a summit of regional leaders in Shanghai. The state-run China Daily suggested that the expression, a Kazakh proverb, was directed at America: “Beijing is urging Washington to get used to China’s rise and take a proper role in the region, which is the world’s economic engine but is also prone to security threats.”

That same expression – “get used to China’s rise” – made an appearance in an editorial last week in the Communist Party-affiliated Global Times, referring to territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas, where China sees the U.S. as siding with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines in their respective tussles with Beijing. “No country should seek the so-called absolute security of itself at the expense of the security of other countries,” Xi told the gathering in Shanghai, speaking out against what he called outdated Cold War thinking and zero-sum games. “No country should attempt to monopolize regional affairs or infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of other countries,” he added, calling for Asian problems to be solved by Asians themselves.

Xi was addressing a summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a forum of 26 countries stretching from Turkey to the Far East. China is assuming the rotating presidency of the grouping until 2016, and Xi used his keynote speech to propose an upgrading in its status. Describing it as the biggest and most representative regional security forum, he called for steps to further build CICA’s institutional arrangements and set up mechanisms for defense consultations among members. The call to enhance CICA’s status may also be a message to “outsiders” to leave Asia to sort out Asian matters. An existing Asia-focused regional security grouping, the 27-member, 20 year-old ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), includes China, Russia and many of the other CICA members – but also the United States, Canada and European Union.

In an analysis of the new Asian security concept put forward by Xi, Beijing’s Xinhua news agency said the security situation in the region was being complicated by “secret maneuvers by players from other parts of the world.” “Asia is the home of Asians, and Asian security immediately concerns their vital interests,” it said. “Thus, it is an inherent and inescapable duty of Asians to keep their own courtyard in order.” Participating leaders at the two-day CICA summit included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On the sidelines, Xi and Putin oversaw the signing of a $400 billion gas deal, the biggest in the history of the Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom, the world’s largest gas company.

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[SayMyName]

The formerly communist elite have embraced predatory capitalism.

They are where we were (sort of) back around 1900.

The solution for China is UNIONISM, except the formerly predatory communist elite (now turned into predatory capitalist elite) will -- much as our "captains of inudstry" did in the beginning of our period of industrial unionism -- set the troops upon the workers.


Tragically, the USA is headed to where China is, even as China is headed to where we used to be.

I don't know if they have embraced predatory capitalism, but I agree that in many ways they are where we were in the 1900's with the rise of the Robber Barons. After that, we had our birthing process of almost 50 years or more until that wealth was more equitably distributed, mostly after World War 2 with the rise of the Baby Boomers. China will need the same adjustment period, though judging by my business and academic roundtables here, it will not be as long a wait. Most business, academic, and political leaders are already acknowledging among themselves that something must be done to bring all of the nation into the prosperity circle that has come for some in recent years. They are addressing pollution, education, and scores of other issues, seemingly much sooner than we did at the same time in history after our own economic coming out. It will take some time, but this will mainly be accomplished, as most acknowledge, once China makes that tenuous shift from selling its goods abroad, to itself, the largest market in the world. That is when the real prosperity will begin, and the benefits to all to be enjoyed.

Exciting times here in China. I am glad to be here to see this all taking place on a day to day basis. For, it isn't just the history of China that is taking place, but that of the world. This could very well end up being their century, just as the last one was ours in America.

 

[SillyWabbit]

Well, it's too bad the end of the world is nigh--thanks to AGW.

China: enjoy your prosperity, as short-lived as it will be.

Good thing we got ours!

 

[waltky]

China gettin' ready to stifle dissent...

Armored Chinese vehicles cause alarm in Hong Kong
Sat, Aug 30, 2014 - Hong Kong democracy advocates expressed alarm yesterday after Chinese army vehicles were photographed traveling down a major thoroughfare, in what they condemned as a show of “military might” ahead of expected protests.

At least four People’s Liberation Army (PLA) armored personnel carriers were seen late Thursday night near the busy Jordan and Yau Ma Tei regions of the city, the Apple Daily newspaper reported. The vehicles, with short guns mounted on turrets, were spotted at a time of heightened public discontent in the semi-autonomous territory over perceived interference by Beijing and a debate over how the next chief executive is to be chosen under planned reforms. Beijing has promised that the former British colony will be able to vote for its own leader in 2017.

However, it has insisted on vetting candidates through a pro-Beijing nominating committee, a move activists fear would disqualify anyone critical of the mainland authorities. A pro-democracy group, Occupy Central, has pledged to mobilize thousands of protesters to block the financial district if authorities refuse to allow the public to choose candidates. Organizers plan to hold a rally tomorrow when the top committee of China’s rubber-stamp legislature is expected to announce what form the political changes will take.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said she believed the movement of the armored carriers was a deliberate attempt to frighten activists ahead of the protests. “It’s a show of military might to scare off Hong Kong people who are about to stage some large-scale civil disobedience activity. The timing is very suspicious,” she said. Occupy co-founder Chan Kin-man said the movement would not be cowed. “The central government is intentionally creating fear in the community so that they can scare away our supporters,” he said. The Hong Kong government declined to comment on the sightings while the PLA did not immediately respond to reporters’ inquiries.

The Chinese army and navy have bases in Hong Kong, but have generally kept a low profile since the former colony was handed over to China in 1997. Tanks are often viewed by Hong Kongers as a symbol of Beijing’s autocratic tendencies. During frequent pro-democracy protests in the city, activists often make homemade tanks in reference to the famous “Tank Man” photograph taken during the Tiananmen Square crackdown of June 4, 1989. “Oh no, it’s really going to be a copy of June 4th,” Teresa Leung, an Apple Daily reader, commented on their report. “If they use force to suppress Occupy Central, the result would be unimaginable,” Tina Ho added on the paper’s Web site.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/08/30/2003598630

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey want dey's MTV...

Hong Kong democracy is China’s nightmare
Mon, Sep 01, 2014 - Hong Kong is now facing a series of governance crises: a stagnant economy, an incompetent government void of any legitimacy, its marginalization by the fast-growing cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, and persistent tensions with China over universal suffrage in elections for the territory’s chief executive and legislators.

China introduced highly restrictive conditions on the nomination of candidates for the first direct election of the territory’s chief executive in 2017. Pledging allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party is to be taken as a precondition for becoming a chief executive, legislator or judge. Hong Kongers have supported the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign. China has publicly condemned the pro-democracy activists as terrorists and traitors. It has deployed extreme nationalistic rhetoric and party-controlled propaganda in a smear campaign to justify the use of violence against the protesters.

Revealing the remnants of authoritarian thinking and China’s obsession with total control, this scare tactic is not what Hong Kong needs. It will polarize the division between pro-democracy and pro-Beijing supporters, undermine the fragile governing institutions and strengthen China’s conservative hardliners, seeking to maintain the “status quo” and put a brake on the territory’s democratization.

Beijing’s handpicked Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying has done nothing to mediate tensions between China and the territory. His tenure has been marked by public outrages, rampant corruption and failure to fulfill campaign promises to promote social and economic equality. He has promoted cronies to senior posts in his Cabinet and undermined the freedom of press. In a rally on July 1, demonstrators called for his resignation.

Despite the odds, all is not lost for Hong Kong. The latest US pivot to Asia presents the territory an opportunity to position itself as a laboratory of democratic activism on Chinese soil and gives its civil society much international attention to pursue its own agenda. To resolve conflicts and regain confidence, a smarter approach for China is to put in place universal suffrage for Hong Kong’s chief executive and legislators. This will require direct and equal negotiation between Hong Kongers and the Chinese leadership.

Hong Kong democracy is China s nightmare - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

possum wonderin' if ever'body kung-fu fightin'?...

Hong Kong Pro-democracy protestors in for long haul
Sun, Oct 12, 2014 - Hundreds of student activists camped at major protest sites in Hong Kong last night as the territory’s democracy movement sought to regather momentum after the government called off talks with its leaders aimed at defusing unrest in the global financial hub.

Protests escalated late last month, after Beijing’s decision on Aug. 31 to impose conditions for nominations that would effectively stop pro-democracy candidates from contesting an election of Hong Kong’s chief executive set for 2017. The “Occupy Central” movement has suffered a noticeable dip in support over the past week, but strong crowds of more than 10,000 returned on Friday evening for a series of rallies in the former British colony. By yesterday afternoon, many protesters were coming back again to join the stalwarts who had camped overnight. “Hong Kong is my home, we are fighting for Hong Kong’s future, our future,” said Lawrence Chan, a 23 year-old media studies student, who has participated in the protests from the outset.

Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam on Thursday said the government had called off talks with the students because of their persistent calls to escalate action. Since taking to the streets around two weeks ago, the activists have blockaded major roads around the government precinct in Admiralty district, as well as the shopping districts of Central and Causeway Bay. At Friday’s rallies, protest leaders urged demonstrators to prepare for a protracted struggle instead of expanding the protests geographically. The protests have led to some resentment among the public due to the resulting traffic jams and loss of business. It was unclear how long Hong Kong authorities will tolerate the occupation or how the standoff might be resolved. However, for now the police presence remains thin with authorities seemingly reluctant to risk fresh flare-ups.

Riot police had cracked down on protesters massing near the government headquarters on Sept. 28, but the authorities have taken a softer line since. More than 100 colorful tents were sprinkled across the eight-lane Harcourt Road highway, among scores of red-and-blue portable marquees serving as supply and first aid stations stocked with water, biscuits, noodles and cereals. “We have tents here to show our determination that we’re prepared for a long term occupation,” said Benny Tai, one of the leaders of the movement, emerging bleary-eyed yesterday morning from a tent pitched outside the Hong Kong government’s headquarters. Scores of people ran a marathon in support of the students early yesterday and bridges remained festooned with umbrellas, protest art demanding full democracy and satirical images lampooning Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.

The Occupy Central protests, an idea conceived more than a year ago referring to the Central business district, have presented Beijing with one of its biggest political challenges since it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital in 1989. In the first direct public comments by a senior Chinese leader in response to the protests, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Hong Kong authorities had the ability to protect the territory’s economic prosperity and social stability. Since Britain handed back control in 1997, China has ruled Hong Kong through a “one country, two systems” formula which allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.

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World watches Beijing in Hong Kong
Tue, Oct 07, 2014 - BIG BROTHER: The means of surveillance have been turned on the CCP by the international media, and its reaction is being scrutinized in Lhasa, Urumqi and Taipei

As thousands of protesters continue to rally on the streets of Hong Kong, challenging Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders by calling for democratic reforms, much of the world anxiously awaits signs of how Beijing plans to react to their demands. However, the anticipation is perhaps felt most keenly along China’s borders, both within the country and beyond, where the Chinese government’s authoritarian ways have been most apparent. Among Tibetans and Uighurs, beleaguered ethnic minorities in China’s far west, there is hope that the protests draws international scrutiny to what these minorities say are Beijing’s broken promises for greater autonomy.

The CCP’s refusal to talk with pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, exiled activists add, also highlights a longstanding complaint among many ethnic minority groups in China — that the party relies on force over dialogue when dealing with politically delicate matters. “We’ve seen this movie before, but when people stand up to the Chinese government in places like Lhasa or Urumqi and meet brutal resistance, there is no foreign media to show the world what’s happening,” Uighur-American lawyer and activist Nury Turke said. “The difference here is what’s happening in Hong Kong is taking place in real time, for all the world to see.”

Few places are watching the protests as closely as Taiwan which Beijing claims is part of China. Beijing’s refusal to grant Hong Kong the free elections that it had promised when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997 — a move that prompted the protests — has sharpened opposition to President Ma Ying-jeou and his efforts to forge closer ties with China. The “one country, two systems” framework, a political arrangement that has given Hong Kongers a raft of liberties unknown on the mainland, was first conceived of as a framework for reunification between Taiwan and China. Although relations have improved in recent years, the two sides have never signed a peace accord, and Beijing retains the option of taking Taiwan by force. “As we closely follow events in Hong Kong, we have this feeling that in the not-so-distant future, we could very well end up like Hong Kong,” National Sun Yat-sen University professor Titus Chen said. “Today it’s Hong Kong; tomorrow it might be Taiwan.”

A policeman speaks during demonstrations in Kowloon’s Mong Kok area in Hong Kong

No matter how the impasse is resolved, the struggle unfolding in Hong Kong is already a public-relations nightmare for Beijing. Outside China, scenes of peaceful student protesters sprayed with tear gas and bloodied by thugs have elicited unwelcome comparisons to the CCP’s response to 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. The protests in Hong Kong, playing out in real time on social media and beamed across the world by international media outlets, also threaten to complicate Beijing’s ambitious efforts to improve its image abroad. In recent days, rallies in Singapore, Seoul, Manila and elsewhere have drawn thousands of people expressing solidarity with demonstrators in Hong Kong.

South Korea’s Yonsei University professor of East Asian studies John Delury said his students, many of whom come from countries across Asia, have been paying close attention to the events in Hong Kong. “I think the impact on young people across Asia could be much bigger than what Beijing anticipates,” he said, adding that Hong Kong’s role as regional purveyor of pop culture and a center for international finance was critical. “From a soft-power perspective, if anything remotely like what happened in 1989 occurs in Hong Kong, China can kiss its soft power goodbye for a couple of decades.”

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[Truman123]

You'll be glad to know this site isn't blocked in China.

 

[waltky]

China crackin' down on free speech...

China’s crackdown on free speech sparking growing dissent
Sunday, Mar. 20, 2016 - A member of China’s top political advisory body calling for free speech. An employee at the state-run Xinhua news service publicly decrying the “massive” suppression of online expression. The granddaughter of a famous Chinese military general openly calling for democracy. A Communist-controlled news site publishing a letter demanding the resignation of President Xi Jinping.

Mr. Xi’s China, thrust into an ideological tightening with echoes of the Cultural Revolution, wasn’t supposed to look like this. But like a spring that recoils after it has been squeezed too tightly, some are fighting back, giving rare voice to internal dissent in an increasingly authoritarian state. It’s far from a revolution. Yet the past few weeks have seen a remarkable succession of challenges to China’s authoritarian tack under Mr. Xi, which has included detaining hundreds of human-rights and labour advocates, proscribing religious freedoms, scrubbing homosexual and other “immoral” content from television, aggressively censoring social media and demanding that traditional media fall into line with Communist Party dictates. “Enough is enough. It’s bound to trigger some kind of reaction,” said Bao Pu, a publisher in Hong Kong whose father is a high-ranking Communist official turned political prisoner and dissident after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. “What you see is just the tip of the iceberg of discontent.”

It has come from unexpected places. Jiang Hong, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance, is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which makes him political high society. But during meetings of China’s rubber-stamp Congress this month, Prof. Jiang struck a defiant tone. “The rights to speak freely must be protected,” he told Caixin, a financial publication. The comments were deleted, as was a subsequent article documenting the censorship. Prof. Jiang has refused to be cowed. “I think it’s necessary to talk about this topic,” he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “A citizen’s right to free speech and right to speak out are very important to a healthy, harmonious and legal society. Without them, it will be hard for us to supervise the government, and manage government so that it can work for the people.”

It’s not a new cause for Prof. Jiang. Two years ago, he proposed a bill to enshrine those rights entitled “Only Democracy Can Radically Cure Corruption.” At the time, party press covered the proposal. Over the previous decade, a loosening environment had made critical commentary more routine. Now, however, “it has reached a kind of extreme state, which involves simply deleting comments and barring you from speaking,” Prof. Jiang said. “The degree of change is striking.” He struggles to understand what he has done wrong, saying he has broken no rules or regulations. China’s own constitution says, “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech.” What is happening today is “a new phenomenon. In the past, only ordinary Netizens were censored like this,” said Qiao Mu, an associate professor of journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Prof. Qiao has himself been caught in the clampdown. An advocate of Western-style journalism, he has been barred from teaching and research, relegated instead to translation and book reviews in the university’s library. He stood before his last class in June, 2014. “They think you have dangerous thoughts,” he said. “It’s a minor Cultural Revolution. They control people’s minds, their speech, their writing and publications. He referred to Document No. 9, an internal party document from 2013 that listed “seven no’s” for China, including Western-style democracy, the promotion of universal human-rights values, and Western philosophies on media and civil society. The Chinese President is reinstating a “patriarchal, hierarchical, traditional autocratic culture where the emperor – the leader of the Communist Party – rules all,” Jasmine Bernstein Yin, a Columbia University student, wrote in The Australian in March, in another public call for change. She was raised in China but educated mostly abroad since the age of 12, and her writing has attracted attention because of her lineage: She is the granddaughter of Ye Jianying, a Mao-era general and former Chinese head of state.

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